Ep. 6: Electrolytes, Hydration, and Why Your Horse Probably Needs More Salt

Scoop & Scale: An Equine Podcast (Mostly) About Nutrition

It's hot outside! As the U.S. faces extreme heat advisories across the country, ensuring your horses stay hydrated is critical to support their natural evaporative cooling systems (that's sweating). In addition to water consumption, electrolytes are an important part of the cooling equation. But knowing if your horse is getting enough, or selecting the right kind to feed, is often confusing.
In this episode, Dr. Clair Thunes explains how electrolytes work and why and when horses need them (and it's not just during hot weather and summer exercise!). Michelle shares how Clair's advice changed how she incorporated salt into her horses’ diets.
Plus! Michelle Asks Clair for Free Advice
Feed prices keep going up, and Michelle's looking to save some money. Can whole flaxseeds replace stabilized ground flax in her horses' diets? Clair weighs in.
About Us
Clair Thunes, PhD, is an equine nutritionist, busy Pony Club mom, and a dressage and eventing enthusiast. She also owns Clarity Equine Nutrition, an independent consulting company based in Gilbert, Arizona. She works with owners and veterinarians to create diets for individual horses, ranging from retired pasture pets to Olympic athletes. Her services also include formulating feeds and supplements for companies, and there's a good chance you've scooped something she helped develop into your horse's bucket. Clair taught equine nutrition and physiology as an adjunct professor at the University of California, Davis, is a highly sought after speaker.
Michelle Anderson is a lifelong horseperson who spent more than two decades writing for and editing equine magazines and websites. In 2022, she started Cadence Marketing + Media, in Bend, Oregon, to support equine-related brands and delivery quality educational content to horse owners. Her clients include equine veterinary hospitals, trainers, boarding stables, and businesses offering professional services for the industry. Her own herd lives at home and includes an aspiring FEI dressage mare, a fiery Arabian-cross trail horse, and a retired Quarter Horse gelding Michelle bred, raised, and (her husband points out) has been feeding for the past 20-plus years. Michelle's goal is to educate owners so they can best care for the horses they love.

Thanks for riding along with us!